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India’s skewed sex ratio and its troubling consequences for Men

It only takes a few minutes for a person walking the streets of any major urban sprawl in India to realize the reality of a disturbing demographic phenomenon: an unnaturally large excess of males over females. Obviously the actual overall Sex ratio is not as skewed as what one would witness out with one’s own eyes; cities in developing countries tend to attract a lot more male migrants than female ones, and in a relatively traditional society like India’s, Women are still encouraged to spend a majority of their time inside their own homes.

The Numbers

But there does indeed exist a grave problem of surplus young males in the country. Decades of female infanticide and foeticide have created large gaps between the male and female population in many critical age cohorts. For example, data from the 2011 Census shows that Nationwide, in the age cohort of 15-19, there were only 56.54 million females for close to 64 million males, which gives us a Sex ratio of 883 females per 1000 males. The Sex ratio for the Age cohort from 10-14 was only slightly better at 911 females per 1000 males. Calculations for other young age cohorts show slight improvements, but there still seems to be a large unnatural gap in the number of males and females. Throughout the population that was under 25 in 2011, we can see an excess of 8-10% of males over females.

Making matters worse is the fact this excess male phenomenon is majorly concentrated in a few Northern States. As is commonly known, Haryana and Punjab have the most skewed Gender ratios in the entire country. The 2011 Census showed that Haryana had only 861 females per thousand males; the child sex ratio was worse, at 834 females per thousand males. Punjab had an overall sex ratio of 895 females per thousand males, while the Child Sex ratio was just 846. This means that parts of North India now have close to a 15% excess of males over females, and combined with the declining fertility rate which makes younger age cohorts smaller than the ones above them, it’s now a statistical certainty that millions, perhaps even tens of millions of young Indian men will never be able to find wives/sexual partners.

What’s behind the Rot

Enough has been written about the mainstream perspective on this issue: how the inherently evil Patriarchy is the root cause of this problem and how women suffer from increased harassment and violence due to so many excess males. I won’t deny that the increased competition from young males tends to cause an increase in sexual violence towards women, but the fact of the matter is that the problem is a lot bigger than that, and is not caused because of the relatively Patriarchal nature of Indian society.

At a fundamental level, people are making the choice favouring sons over daughters on the basis of cold hearted economic logic- if you have a son, you needn’t save anything as dowry, in fact, your family gets paid when your son marries. On top of that, having a son secures your own financial future when you get old. Since men tend to “marry down”, sons of those who’re better off in the socio-economic hierarchy would still manage to get wives. This is why the numbers consistently show the lowest sex ratios for the most economically well off communities, i.e. the Jains, Sikhs, Upper Caste Hindus, etc, while relatively poorer and less educated communities of Dalits, Tribals and Muslims tend to have more “normal” Sex ratios.

If the leftist-liberal argument about the Patriarchy killing the females of this country was true, wouldn’t it obviously imply that More liberal, better educated communities like Jains would actually have stellar Sex ratios in comparison to the less educated, much more Patriarchal ones like Muslims. But obviously, that is not the case. In fact there’s direct correlation in the opposite direction- better educated and economically well off communities have actually tended to do worse in terms of the Sex Ratio.

More Misery for Men

The Liberal/mainstream media also completely refuses to talk about how the excess male problem affects the lives of men. Indian men, particularly in the North, and particularly in the cities are now faced with a completely lopsided dating and marriage market. The increased pressure to find better jobs and earn more to attract women now further fuels the materialistic rat race that so many are forced into.

The situation is now so dire that even average looking females are put on a massive pedestal by multitudes of thirsty Betas across Indian educational Institutes, workplaces etc. It’s almost impossible for the average Indian guy to have normal interactions with these girls who have princess like egos. A lot of men just give up and become hopelessly tied to self-destructive addictions like Alcohol and Porn.

Apps like Tinder are enormous sausage fests across much of the country. A large proportion of the females that are on these dating apps simply use them for further validation. An average looking guy with average/little text game has almost no real chance of dating any decent girls on such platforms. Men are expected to be as close to perfect as possible, with excellent grooming, muscular physique, at least above average height, a good job/money and much more. In short, the surplus male problem has effectively made the lives of Indian men tragically miserable.